I feel sorry for Caroline Zhang

caroline got cheated out of at least 6 points in the short.
at least 3 points in the long.

she can skate as clean as she like, well as she likes, not get the scores she deserves or earns.

i can think of one good reason. 1) didn't want her up there-starting why back,
2) complaining her going back to worlds.
3) complaining shouldn't been up in gp when 13, when she was assigned without asking by the usfsa.\
4) the yearly overlooking of ur/downgrades of other skaters, and her continuing hawk like looking at her jumps.

She has made no improvements in rotating her jumps in the last year, and it has been a persistent problem. I feel bad that the jumps don't come to her as easily now as they did when she was younger, but I think her scores are accurate.

A lot of skaters have this problem and I don't know why. If you look at skaters 20 years ago hardly anyone underrotated their jumps. Now that it's penalized you see so much of it; it makes no sense.

I don't know about that. 20 years ago no-one paid close attention to whether jumps were complete;y rotated or not. It took a really bad effort for the commentators to call a jump "cheated on the landing."

I don't know about that. 20 years ago no-one paid close attention to whether jumps were complete;y rotated or not. It took a really bad effort for the commentators to call a jump "cheated on the landing."

unless they were ladies that Dick didn't like, then that's all we ever heard about.

Under 6.0 judges didn't pay much attention to underrotated jumps plus the scoring system was much more general. Now with COP you can judge a lot of things separately including jumps and give points or take away points using GOE for instance.

For me it was at best a moment of nostalgia, a memory of her past, when she was 13-14. The judges saw rightfully that the other girls like Hannah Miller, Angela Wang and Samantha Cesario are better now.

Caroline's jumps are just not good. She still has no spring, no height and no ice-coverage. The lack of spring and height is why she cannot complete her rotations. And then there's the mulekick flutz. I also noted that as she skated, snow sprayed from her skates. This is indicative of poor basic skating. Zhang was not robbed.

Also, if you watch her basic crossovers, you will see that she doesn't use her under pushing skate correctly which is why she gets no power and because her basic skating has no power, she gets no help from the gliding edge going into her jumps which makes it harder to spring and therefore harder to rotate her jumps.

Second year in a row that Zhang was a real highlight for me. I love it when a skater can skate their best or near it, and have a lovely program and connect with the audience - I'm not saying that, therefore, I think that skater should win, but am saying that it adds, IMO, something very, very lovely to a competition. Zhang gave me goosebumps and I thank her for that and hope she keeps skating 'cuz I want more goosebumps!!

I do think her jumps continue to improve but what appears to be still a major issue, and with this I do agree with maskater93, is her basic skating skills; she really, really needs to work on SS - she needs more edge control, better use of the blades especially with the crossovers, but also steps/turns, and power if she wants to up her competitive ante.

Whatever her goals and hopes, I wish her well. But also want to just agree with MM here - I don't "feel sorry for her" - I feel great that she skated well and made so, so many people happy.

I was glad to see Caroline skate decently and land her jumps. But I know there are technical issues with her skating, as Dragonlady and Mskater93 pointed out. Also, I felt like her actual performance in the long was pretty flat. It wasn't until the spiral at the end that she expressed any emotion. Up to that point, she was just checking off the elements. I definitely don't feel she was robbed at all.